UK Conservatives in hunt for new allies

William Hague, Britain’s shadow foreign secretary, is to discuss the possibility that the Conservative Party will leave the European Parliament’s biggest political group when he visits Brussels next week.

Before being elected as Conservative leader in December, David Cameron expressed a preference for taking his party's MEPs out of the European People's Party (EPP-ED) alliance.

Cameron has now assigned Hague to visit centre-right parties in several EU countries, so that the alternatives to remaining in that group can be examined. Conservative MEPs expect that he will give them feedback on his assessments during his two-day stay in Brussels (30-31 January).

After Germany's Christian Democrats, the British Conservatives comprise the second largest national delegation in the EPP-ED, with 27 MEPs in the 264-strong group. The group's leader Hans-Gert Pöttering recently pointed out that the Conservatives had signed a five-year contract with the EPP, describing Cameron's efforts to leave the group as a "breach of solidarity".

While Hague was party leader in 1997-2001, he secured an agreement that the Conservatives would belong to the European Democrats (ED) part of the group, rather than its more federalist-minded Christian Democrat core. But the success of the United Kingdom Independence Party in the 2004 European election has convinced many in the party that they should sever formal ties with the EPP altogether.

But several Conservative MEPs say the party would struggle to find a more ideologically compatible group.

One option being studied would be for the Conservatives to join the Union for a Europe of the Nations (UEN) group. Another is that efforts could be made to form a new centre-right group with the Czech Civic Democrats (ODS).

John Bowis, a former UK health minister, said he doubted that this would be possible as one of the main parties in the UEN - Italy's Alleanza Nazionale - is federalist-minded.

Scotland's Struan Stevenson, a vice-chairman of the EPP-ED, said he did not think it was likely that the Conservatives could join any of the other current groups in the assembly. "There would have to be a hybrid or a new group," he said.

Stevenson said that under no circumstance would he be prepared to sit with the non-attached members of the Parliament, who include French National Front firebrand Jean-Marie Le Pen and Alessandra Mussolini, a granddaughter of Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

But Martin Callanan, an MEP for England's north-eastern region, called Cameron's proposal of leaving the EPP-ED a "superb idea".

"We fought the last European election and general election on a manifesto that was diametrically opposed to what the EPP stands for," said Callanan.

"The EPP is Eurofanatic, whereas we are a Euro-sceptic party.

"I would be in favour of having good relations with the EPP but on the basis that it is better to be good neighbours than reluctant tenants."